X-Files Comics Unfiled: A Guide
This is a frequently updated guide for any newbie or curious X-Phile on all The X-Files comics published to date, and how to find them. This post was last updated 2022 with extra details on the IDW series, The X-Files in Japanese manga form plus appearances in The Simpsons comic books.
There have been three ‘waves’ of comics based on The X-Files to date. Topps released 41 issues of original stories from 1995 to late 1998, its run finishing sometime in the interim between the first X-Files movie and the show’s subsequent sixth season. The show would continue to produce new episodes until its eventual cancellation in 2002, but no other X-Files comics were produced whilst it was on air besides a one-shot based on The Lone Gunmen spin-off show from 2001.
For those who wish to read the classic X-Files comics published by Topps in the 1990s without buying one single issue after another on, say, Ebay, don’t worry, as there are plenty of ways to collect that series in trade paperback or hardback form. IDW has collected the entire Topps run by reprinting all 41 issues over four volumes during 2013–2014, along with a 2015 reissue of 1997’s Ground Zero mini-series. That said, it hasn’t yet re-released all the other stories from various Topps annuals, digests and mini issues that were released in the 90s. Scroll down below to find out how to get your hands on those particular stories.
The Ground Zero series was different to the other Topps tales, being an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Kevin J. Anderson, itself an original tale based on the show that was never made into an episode, nor connected to one. In a similar vein are the Season One comics Topps put out in 1997, adaptations of episodes from the show’s inaugural season which have also been collected by IDW.
A year prior saw different season one adaptations released in Japan by Shonen Captain, adaptations of six episodes by various manga artists spread over three volumes. No omnibus or official English translations of these exist.
After Topps shuttered its X-Files comics, DC Wildstorm picked up the baton a decade later from 2008 to 2011 in support of the second X-files movie, I Want To Believe.
7 issues were released, along with a 6-part crossover with the 30 Days of Night franchise, each comic being based in the show’s ‘golden era’ chronology-wise, i.e. the 1990s, instead of the actual late-00s setting of I Want To Believe. Three of these Wildstorm comics were written by the show’s executive producer Frank Spotnitz, who stated the whole line was based somewhere between seasons 2 and 5 of the TV show.
After the end of the 30 Days of Night crossover in early 2011, no comics were produced until IDW was granted the exclusive rights by series creator Chris Carter. In 2013, the company began putting out comics set in its own Season 10 continuity, as positioned way beyond the show’s final ninth season from 2002, and a few years after the 2008-set events of the second movie.
This season is not to be confused with the show’s actual tenth season on television, the mini-series revival that was broadcast in 2016. The 25 comics from the run have no connection to the comeback, which they obviously pre-date. The stories take place in an alternate continuity, one that led to a Season 11 run that was cut short by IDW once the revival series was announced by Fox.
The 8 issues of Season 11 have been collected in two trade paperbacks, along with an X-Mas special, while the preceding Season 10 is now out in five volumes. If that seems like a little too many, then you can contend yourself with the omnibus Season 10 collections that split the 25 issues over two books, with the bonus of the two annuals released as part of the series — one from 2014 that includes a new tale by Frank Spotnitz, and the other from 2015 — along with The X-Files X-Mas Special from 2014. If even that seems like a chore, then be happy in the knowledge that these comics were adapted for the brand new series of X-Files audio books known as Cold Cases, as released by Audible in 2017.
During their Seasons 10 and 11, IDW also put out spin-off stories in the form of Millennium comics, the first time an X-Files spin-off has appeared in graphic form since The Lone Gunmen comic mentioned earlier.
The main character of that long gone show, Frank Black, also made a few crossover appearances prior in the Season 10 issues. Fox Mulder returned the favour by appearing in the five-issue Millennium series, which was released and collected in 2015, with nothing put out since (sadly).
IDW has also created original characters for its 1940s set Year Zero prequel, a five-issue run centred around the original founders of The X-Files division which also featured modern day appearances from Mulder and Scully. This one-time run was also collected in 2015.
Another series that came out tangent to Seasons 10 and 11 was the company-wide ‘event’ Conspiracy, a six-part crossover series as led by The Lone Gunmen, with appearances from Mulder, Scully and characters from other IDW-owned properties such as Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Ghostbusters. The entire saga was collected in 2014 — look out for the issue which features an unlikely follow-up to the classic Vince Gilligan episode Bad Blood!
Since Season 11 came to an early close in 2016, X-Files comics from IDW followed the continuity of the revival series, with the lack of connection to Seasons 10 and 11 evident in the title of this most newest of series: The X-Files. Those two seasons have been erased from the post-revival canon, and this particular series ran for 17 issues until summer 2017. This series also gave us a 2016 annual, along with a 2016 X-Mas special issue.
Following the 2017 cancellation, X-Files comics pretty much took a hiatus, with only the two-part JFK Disclosure mini-series being released in autumn 2017. April 2018 saw the comics resume temporarily with the Case Files series, a MOTW-focused line that comprised of two stories told over four issues, collected in a paperback released December 2018.
Running in parallel with the 2017 post-revival phase was The X-Files: Origins, a four-issue story about Mulder and Scully’s teenage years. These are not adaptations of the YA novels of the same name due out in 2016 from the franchise via the publisher Imprint; instead, they operate in the same world of our younger heroes, but by telling different stories to the books.
Prior to both of the 2017 lines was a one-shot set in an alternate, ‘what if?’ universe. Released after the end of Season 11, ‘Time and Being’ was part of the Deviations series, an event similar to Conspiracy with one-shots devoted to other IDW franchises, but with none of the stories being connected. This short release imagined Samantha Mulder as an FBI agent working with Dana Scully, haunted by childhood memories of her brother Fox being abducted by aliens, and can be found as part of the collection Deviations: In A World Where Everything Changed. 2017 saw the story continued in another Deviations one-off special that was later collected in the Deviations: Beta paperback.
If you’re into reading about alternate versions of Mulder and Scully, then you won’t go wrong with this one-off comic coming from IDW in May 2017 — The X-Files Funko Universe! Yep, this is a comic based on the popular pop culture line of Funko toys, following the adventures of a Funko Mulder and a Funko Scully in some ridiculous toy universe. Other IDW comics which got the Funko storytelling treatment were Ghostbusters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Strawberry Shortcake, and Judge Dredd.
All these comics from IDW have so far been released in neat, easy to find hardcover and paperback form. This following list though will look at the Topps and miscellaneous X-Files comics which haven’t been collected in any way, shape or form to date. The following list is for any collector who’s looking for the truth on Ebay, or who doesn’t mind downloading scans to round out the entire set. It doesn’t feature the Wildstorm issues, simply as every single one of those issues has been collected — good news for the completist!
Unfiled X-Files Comics
Circle Game (TV Guide, 1995) by Petrucha/Adlard
A 5-page strip by the regular Topps duo of writer Stephen Petrucha and artist Charlie Adlard (of Walking Dead fame). For scans, see here.
Animaniacs #19 (DC, 1996) by King/Adlard/Sternecky
The Simpsons may have met Mulder and Scully, but the first X-Files cartoon crossover was actually in comic book form! This issue was drawn by regular Topps artist Charlie Adlard, with a cover by regular C.A Miran Kim.
Afterflight (Topps, 1997) by Petrucha/Thompson
This was a specially released graphic novel that had one story told over 60 pages instead of the usual 22. Scans exist online, but bizarrely only in Russian form!
The X-Files: Fight the Future Movie Adaptation (Topps, 1998) by Rozum/Van Fleet
Topps adapted nine episodes of the show’s first season into comic form in 1997, as collected by IDW over two volumes which rather strangely miss out this 56-page illustrated novella rendition from Topps of the first X-Files movie, the only other comic adaptation out there of a canon X-Files story. Who knows if it’ll come out again someday?
The Lone Gunmen #1 (Dark Horse, 2001) by Espenson/Lee
This was the only comic based on the Lone Gunmen spin-off TV show, and at the time the only X-Files spin-off that got the comic treatment (as Millennium, for example, was never adapted before its cancellation). The title of this story is Patriots, an original 36-page story, and the only comic to have been released whilst the X-Files was still on TV that had nothing to do with the people at Topps. Also includes a one-page TLG comic called Generations.
Long before IDW collected all of their regular run, Topps released two anthologies covering issues 1 to 12 of their comics, shortly before the company met its demise in 1998. Checker Publishing Group picked up the baton in 2005 with three more volumes, re-releasing issues 13 to 26 of the classic run, before they too met an untimely end.
The 8 Topps comics you’ll read about next though were not part of Topps’s 41 issue monthly run (e.g. short one-off strips, or stories from annuals), and their re-releases have been shared out by the big three of Checker, Topps, and England’s Titan Publishing, as opposed to being kept under just the one banner (which would have made things a lot easier).
The following trades from the four are all easy enough to get your hands on should you be chasing X-File comic rarities (although you’re more likely to find second-hand editions of the Titan books and Topps Collections as opposed to brand new copies). The list of ten is as follows: Checker: The X-Files Vol 2 (2005), collecting Topps issues 18–22 and extras, Checker: The X-Files Vol 3(2006), collecting Topps issues 23–26 and extras, Topps: The X-Files Collection Vol 1 (1995), collecting Topps issues 1–6 and extras, Topps: The X-Files Collection Vol 2 (1996),collecting Topps issues 7–12 and extras, The X-Files: Firebird (Titan, 1995), collecting Topps issues 1–6 and extras, TXF: Project Aquarius (Titan, 1996), collecting Topps issues 7–11 and extras, TXF: Dead to the World (Titan, 1996), omnibus collecting all three of Topps X-Files ‘digest’ comics (mini-sized comics, basically), plus TXF: The Haunting (Titan, 1997), collecting Topps issues 12–16 and extras, and TXF: Internal Affairs (Titan, 1997), collecting Topps issues 22–24 and extras.
These are the eight rare comics which are featured in at least one of the nine trades mentioned:
The Pit (Topps, 1996) by Petrucha/Adlard
A mini-strip collected in Project Aquarius (Titan, 1996).
The Silent Sword (Topps, 1996) by Rozum/Aubin
A mini-strip collected in The Haunting (Titan, 1996).
Trick of the Light (Topps, 1996) by Petrucha/Adlard
A 10-page story collected in Checker Vol 3, X-Files Collection Vol 1 (Topps, 1995) and Firebird (Titan, 1995).
The X-Files Annual 1: Hallow Eve (Topps, 1995) by Petrucha/Adlard
Hallow Eve is a 44-page story collected in The Haunting. Also available in X-Files Collection Vol 2 (Topps, 1996).
The X-Files Annual 2: E.L.F.s (Topps, 1996) by Rozum/Purcell
E.L.F.s is a 52-page tale only collected inside Internal Affairs (Titan, 1997), alongside three regular 22-page stories — The Kanashibari, Donor and Silver Lining, comics from the monthly run which can be easily found in many other compilations. (Please note that the information on the usually reliable Comic Book Database site for Internal Affairs is incorrect, missing the full list of comics available in the trade).
Digest 1: ‘Big Foot Warm Heart’ by Petrucha/Adlard (Topps, 1995)
One story, collected in Checker Vol 2 and Dead to the World (Titan, 1996).
Digest 2: ‘Dead to the World’ by Petrucha/Adlard (Topps, 1996)
One story, only collected in Dead to the World.
Digest 3: ‘Scape Goats’ by Rozum/Adlard (Topps, 1996)
One story, only collected in Dead to the World.
3 Miscellaneous Comics
Tiptoe Through the Tulpa (Topps 1995) by Petrucha/Boonthanakit
A mini-strip collected in IDW: The X-Files Classics Vol 2 (2013) (a collection featuring Topps issues 10–19 and extras).
Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #4 (Bongo, 1998)
The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror #22 (Bongo, 2016)
Mulder and Scully cameo in both of the above comics in one panel each with little to no dialogue. Walter Skinner also appears in the 2016 comic, making for his only in-universe appearance within the world of The Simpsons.
